Matt Yglesais

A member of the juice-box mafia is at it again. This one, well, it just amazes me (but it shouldn’t). Matt Yglesias:

As I’ve noted before, in the eyes of its defenders the blockade of the Gaza Strip is a security measure aimed at denying rockets to Hamas, while in fact it’s a comprehensive effort to collectively punish Gaza residents—a majority of whom are children—in hopes that this will somehow lead to Hamas being replaced by a more moderate regime. Yousef Munayyer’s rundown of the consequences of the blockade makes the point clearly. For example, “In 2006, Israel carried out an attack on Gaza’s only power plant and never permitted the rebuilding to its pre-attack capacity (down to producing 80 megawatts maximum from 140 megawatts).”

On the surface, it’s pure conjecture. And, as you’ll see, it is pure conjecture based on a false premise. But not unusual for those whose sole intent is to demonize Israel.

As has been pointed out many times, Israel absorbs about 4,000 rocket attacks a year from Gaza. Random attacks aimed at Israeli civilians. I wonder what Yglesais would say if Israel responded in kind? Would that be “collective punishment” for Gaza, but not Israel (which, though he hasn’t apparently noticed, has women and children endangered by those attacks – in fact, they’re the targets).

According to the UN report of May 2010, 120 megawatts (over 70%) of the Strip’s electricity supply comes from the Israeli electric grid, while 17 MWs come from Egypt and 30 MWs are produced by the Gaza city power station. Since January 2010, there has been deterioration in the supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip since the Hamas regime is unwilling to purchase the fuel to run the Gaza City power station.

Throughout 2009 Israel transferred 41 trucks of equipment for the maintenance of Gaza’s electricity grid.

Israel facilitates the transfer of fuel through the border, and maintains that the diversion of fuel from domestic power generators to other uses is wholly a Hamas decision. Over 133 million liters of fuel entered Gaza from Israel over the last 18 months.

Wow – Google truly is your friend.

If the assumption is that 140 MW is what Gaza needs (since Yglesais implies the Gaza electrical station could produce that at full capacity) then it appears they’re fine. They receive 167 MW from various sources, mostly Israel. And, it appears, at least according the data the Israelis have produced, that “41 trucks of equipment for the maintenance of Gaza’s electric grid” points to something quite different than “never permitted the rebuilding” (and yes I realize that doesn’t necessarily mean the main power plant exclusively, but it doesn’t exclude it either).

As does the fact that Hamas has been diverting fuel from the domestic power generators to other uses.

I suppose one could try to construct a defense of what the policy actually is, but instead most people seem to prefer to defend something else. Of course Israelis don’t want to be hit by rockets, but why shouldn’t Gaza’s civilians have electricity?

I suppose one could come up with pure unsubstantiated BS and conjecture and try to pass it off as truth too – oh, wait …

And what does it leave us with? Uh, yeah, those rockets. Still real and still hitting Israel.